


Always 1895

by motleystitches (furius)



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Identities, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, British Empire, Charles Xavier has a Twin, Diogenes Club, Erik is not a Happy Bunny, Historical, Historical Accuracy, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, M/M, Mutant Rights, Politics, Propaganda, Reunions, Victorian, Victorian Attitudes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-10 13:37:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furius/pseuds/motleystitches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after losing Charles in Switzerland, a mysterious letter brings Erik back to London in the hope that Charles is still alive. But Mycroft Holmes, Crown servant of HM Government, will go to any length to ensure public thinks of Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr are the most dangerous men in London and the vilest of criminals. The Empire must always come first.</p><p>A fusion of XMFC and SACD canons, post <i>The Empty House</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane  
> As night descends upon this fabled street:  
> A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,  
> The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet.  
> Here, though the world explode, these two survive,  
> And it is always eighteen ninety-five.  
> – _221B_ by Vincent Starrett
> 
> A story written for [The Tryst gifset.](http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/diogenes-club-has-been-and-seen-everything-throughout-holmesian-fandom)a

Erik stepped off the train at King's Cross with the state of Madam Lucie's household still occupying his mind. Though Erik had little influence on popular opinion compared against those that had rallied against the injustice to her husband, Erik's influence on metal could at least ensure that clock work bombs did not enter the postbox alongside the vitriolic postcards against her husband and Jews in general. If not for the telegram weighing heavier the longer he lingered in France, he would've not had crossed the strait.

Swirls of brown smog palled the London morning. Smoke hung suspended in England's wet air, drawing the city into a surrealist painting, the edges blurred as if it could not bear its own existence. Erik circled around a puddle and bought the morning papers. The Conservative alliance and the Liberals were making their arguments, trade unionists and socialists relegated to the sensationalism corner. It should not be surprising. He had always known that the gradualists would compromise. It was a fool's hope that free education and temperance reform and Scottish nationalism et cetera et cetera could be gathered under a single banner. Everyman want different things. Yet confronting the ineffectiveness in black and white, no matter how expected, the idea that their political hope would be stillborn pricked like a thorn in his flesh. 

Glancing at his watch, it would be still a hour before Charles made his way from his morning appointments. After long trips abroad, Erik had often stood on the same platform, reacquainting himself with the notion of seeing Charles again. The station looked little different. Perhaps the fashion of hats changed a little. Charles would know, like he knew all things. 

After getting out of the cab, Erik ducked into the door of a small bookstore he knew, nodded at the shopkeeper. Behind the Montesquieu and Rousseau as well as the newer publications from the more respectable Fabian and the more incendiary and less named groups, he saw the old monographs by Prof. X. His hand lingered over the fading titles then went back out from among the stacks and purchased a handsomely bound copy of Italian sonnets. It should amuse, at the very least. The latest _Strand_ magazine stood in a prominent on the table, still advertising the chronicles of the detective in an inappropriate deerstalker. Erik ignored the incredulous looks of the girl behind the counter and purchased a copy of _The Blackwood_ as well as _The Clarion._

By the time he made his way to the little door on Pall Mall it was nearly noon. The porter bowed and took his coat. Erik made his way up toward the main room. It was empty. He took one of the chairs in the nook with the chess table. At his other side he wrote a ticket for a glass of wine.

He was waiting. Charles was coming back. It was unthinkable he would not. The club looked exactly the same when he was here last. Surely it was the same man who sat and snored in the armchair in the corner. 

Charles and Erik could lunch together. He had matters that would welcome Charles' scrutiny, not the least was himself. He himself wished Charles' eyes on him. Four years was a long time to live without. No matter how many more pleasant recollection he had of Charles, it was always the pain and fear in those eyes at their last parting that haunted him to sleep. Charles didn't even have his cigarette case when he fell. Erik sometimes woke in the mornings with the entire house's metal in the bed beside him and his landlady in hysterics about ghosts. Consequently, his rent was cheap and he had no neighbors.

Charles would've laughed. He had once told Erik how he and his sister had played joked on his mother's less savory guests by giving them a personalized experience of Dickens _A Christmas Carol_.

Erik had mocked him for using his abilities so casually. Early in the acquaintance, he thought Charles soft, a gentleman with a taste for rebellion and possibly rough trade. 

Time turned all memories gentle. Now he looked forward to Charles' smile, always a little too sad to be truly tender, but so firm in its conviction for joy that Erik could not help to find it comforting. He needed, he thought, in this unpleasant weather, in this island of pale sharp people, a little comfort on this path they had chose to pursue in the wilderness. Charles owed him that, at the least. Charles could've gone home to Greymalkin. His family would've embraced their only heir and prodigal son. Erik had no such consolation. 

There had only been his work. And then, Charles.

The room began to fill as the hour drew toward lunch. A menu had been discreetly placed by his side. The vacancy at the other side of the chess table remained, so Erik read through first the papers, then the magazine. When he looked up from them, the clock had already struck three and the room was nearly empty again except for several gray heads snoring in their chairs. He left the newspapers, but took everything else with him.

He walked up the street toward the St. James' side and then to Baker Street where he lingered outside 221B. The fog had dissipated, but a brown film clung to every surface. He looked up toward the window, but though the curtains were drawn, no one stood there to greet him. Mud had begun seeping into his trouser cuffs when he finally left without knocking. There could be other tenants. Mrs. Hudson should not have liked to see him. He did not wish to frighten her. 

And he was being followed. A shadow had been trailing him. A man, or perhaps a woman in disguise. Erik's life didn't allow assumptions after meeting Irene Adler and her paramour. He had always been cautious until circumstances required otherwise. 

The telegram in his pocket had merely said he's back. Perhaps Erik was wrong all along. It was not addressed to him; it had no sender he recognized; and it had only found him after a six month delay. Yet it was on the last he pinned his hopes. How could Emile Henry's circle of anarchists and the French communards know who Charles was and more importantly, what he meant to Maximillan Eisenhardt? 

They never met wearing green carnations. Even socialist politicians and day laborers preferred gentlemen of the establishment to lead them and even anarchists had prejudices regarding the purity of soul of those who counted themselves among the number. Charles and he had always been careful. The rumours and reports from England had proved it to be a prudent choice.

Hungry, not knowing where Charles was and unexpectedly suffering from hope -- only Charles could live with such an endless agony--- Erik sat down at a non-discrete cafe and ordered a creamed bun and a coffee. At half-past five, he made his way to the Diogenes Club again.

Silence and newspapers filled the room behind the glass. And behind a particular set of newspapers, he could sense the specific metal filling, the gold watch and its chain, the silver tie pin of one of the most dangerous men in London, perhaps even the world. The newspapers did not lower to reveal watery gray eyes at Erik's entrance. 

Erik unfurled his own papers. Aware, after a moment, that the goldwatch had left the room. Then a salver was placed on the table beside him. 

Erik accepted the invitation to the Stranger's Room. 

The older Holmes was immense as ever, a hulk-like presence among the antiques the British pirated and now considered their own.

"Mr. Lehnsherr, welcome back. You should be reading the Strand," Mycroft said. "I am told it is by far the more popular and so better reading."

"I don't have time for stories, Mr. Holmes," Erik replied, "especially ones written by politicians. I am particularly not interested in what is popular."

"You've made that admirably clear given your recent activities. However, you might care for someone who does mind popularity. Professor Moriarty, you should know, as he's based on a mutual acquiatance, is now the Napoleon of crime under Dr. Watson's pen which has a wide readership." Mycroft said mildly. "And Dr. Watson shies from political views."

Erik scoffed. What better to antagonize and invigorate sentiments of an Englishman then to call upon Napoleon. "Moriarty? I took it the Doctor was not pleased to be merely a conduit of your wishes? I suppose you can allow small rebellions, as long as they're in the form of Latin puns."

Mycroft's smile had a disarming quality, though the eyes belie the effect: the sharp, introspective look that reminded Erik painfully of the telepath he had come to find. "Suggestions, merely. I'm surprised you do not recognize an Irish name, Mr. Lehnsherr, given your own extractions, however temporary your sojourn there may have been. I am pleased that you are surprised at our industry. Though the Latin does not quite fit, does it?"

"I mean artifice. Art has nothing to do with it, and everything to do with how you cannot stand the thought that there were people who did not like to play by your rules."

Holmes ignored this. "And you are Col. Sebastian Moran. Son of a peer, Eton, Oxford, author-"

"You've promoted me," Erik muttered. 

"I've had nothing to do with it. It is really remarkable. The doctor has a tendency toward sentiment. He named you Sebastian, after all, the name of a Christian saint"

"Before he damned me." Erik had known he would always play the villain in the eyes of society, regardless of his guilt, even as Capt. Dreyfus was. It was the lot of his people he would have changed. But to be _made_ the enemy by Mycroft Holmes seemed worse. Professor Moriarty or Col. Sebastian Moran doubtless resembled the the truth just enough to obstruct their efforts. “What does Sherlock say of your interference in such an unfaithful chronicle?”

“You did give the doctor a shock,” Mycroft said. “And Sherlock did not welcome your interference in his private affairs, nor does he, as a rule, inclined to interfere with Watson’s literary efforts as long as it preserves the anonymity of his clients and associates. You should be satisfied on that account. No university named, no true address disclosed. Neither you nor Charles can be identified.”

“You know that your brother and I have deeper grievances than the trajectory of a bullet, which he would've felt but as a beesting. There is after all, Reichenbach.” Erik choked out the last word. Holmes, the younger, and Charles had agreed to meet. The constant evasion had wearied Charles, who went to Switzerland at Erik’s suggestion. Erik still did not know what had passed on top of that waterfall, only that Charles and Sherlock were both falling and then Charles was gone, but Sherlock somehow had survived, clinging to the rocks before the local police was on Erik and he had to leave him and before he could ascertain Charles' fate. 

Three years later, Holmes came back to London without Charles and had found that Erik was pursuing him. Catullus, indeed, unless Watson wish only to reaffirm Sherlock Holmes singular bachelorhood. The metaljackets of the soft-nosed bullet had been intended to hurt, yes, though not permanently. “Whatever you think of me, Mr. Holmes, your brother’s private affairs cease to be private when he interfered with the fate and future of an entire people. I suppose Sherlock hasn’t yet told Watson the unique details of his resurrection.”

"Think? I know you. I also know why you’ve come back. I’m sorry that Sherlock is not at home today to answer your questions, but you will not find the professor here and England would do better with your absence than your presence. It would also be better if you are behind bars, though we both know how impossible that is. I’m surprised you let Scotland Yard hold you for the fortnight after your ill-conceived altercation with a wax statue.”

Erik had been waiting for Charles, who had come to rescue him as he did the first time. Charles, who had believed that Sherlock Holmes a logical and reasonable man, someone who could be convinced of the necessity of Charles’ efforts. The worst betrayal of all- that Sherlock Holmes was like them and Erik had believed Charles- that a Holmes could be sympathetic. 

“I wonder that you do not have me executed.”

Mycroft sighed. “I am not without feeling. There are so very few of us already. Dr. Xavier’s death is an unfortunate accident and a great loss to science as well as a personal loss. I disagreed with his principles, but I will not deny the kinship that binds us beyond that of blood. We found his body, washed ashore miles down the river.”

There was iron in the fireplace. There was metal everywhere. Erik’s hands shook, but there was no comfort anywhere. Mycroft’s confirmation was worse than anything. Erik’s heart was shadow, his body air. Grief hollowed him. His voice echoed from a distance: “And you yet you would have his memory sullied by an villainous invention. Ms. Adler has told me that she has seen-“

“What Ms. Adler sees, Mr. Lehnsherr, is a matter of possibilities. I am tasked with knowing when each possibility must be realised, but foremost I am a servant of Her Majesty’s government.”

“And all you care about is the Great Game.”

“As you play yours.”

“Do you intend for us to hide forever? Do you intend to _force_ us to hide forever? Are we to be fairies, ghosts, and changelings forever, to be killed by a mob because we are not men?”

“No, not forever, Mr. Lehnsherr, but it’s not the right time. A life of scholarship has rendered Prof. Xavier inflexible in noble intentions. The powers of heredity, of indeed, evolution itself, would’ve shown the peculiarities of mutations among men in time as natural phenomena rather than supernatural. Progress and reform will come gradually, without the violence inherent in forceful disclosures made in the present. As quickly as science marches, England is not ready and it will not be ready for a long time. For now, Britain’s role in history must be my primary concern. The stability and safety of the empire requires everyone to play his part, even me. Even Charles Xavier.”

Erik stood. “Goodbye, Mycroft.”

“Yes, goodbye, I suppose I should not speak to you again after you leave England.”

The last was undoubtedly command. Erik did not like to think of what Mycroft would do if he did not.

“No.”

Mycroft nodded then heaved himself up, surprisingly dextrous for his size.

Erik flexed his fingers. Metal answered. Silence would answer, but then Mycroft was gone from the room and Charles was gone.

Erik looked outside the window and observed that on the streets a dirty child seemed to be hesitating. One of Sherlock’s Irregulars? The boy leaned against the railing, then stood in front of the door again. A light drizzle began. The boy looked up, something in his hand caught Erik’s eye.

Erik ran down the stairs into the rain. The boy walked into him and handed him a card, folded in half.

There was a single scratch of letter on the card: “X”.

Erik could not suppress the flutter of pleasure seeing it.”Did he say when?”

“Eight, sir,” the boy answered, “and he said he wants to play black.”

Erik drew out his own wallet from the boy’s belt, and before the boy could protest or run, tipped him generously.

-=-=

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The irony of the line "And it is always eighteen ninety-five" to inspire nostalgia when:
> 
> Jan 1895: Capt. Dreyfus of the French army was falsely accused of treason and not exonerated until a decade later, partly/mostly because he's Jewish.  
> March 1895: Bridget Cleary was burned to death/murdered by her husband and neighbors for being a "changeling". (Commonly referred to as "the last witch burned")  
> April 1895: Oscar Wilde goes on trial for being a sodomite.
> 
> And that Mycroft occupied "a minor post in the government" that apparently controlled the British Empire at its height. Incidentally, "The Great Game" in 1895 actually refers to British vs. Russian interests in Central Asia, including the Bolshiveik Revolution though I'm...futuristically alluding to Sherlock Ep 3 title. 
> 
> The Empty House, according to Watson, took place in Apri 3, 1984. Chronologically, it's the last case involving Moriarty or Moran. 
> 
> "Moriarti" is sort of "to die confined/by narrowness" and by sound can be roughly translated to "to die now" with _mori_ Latin and _arti_ Greek. Erik is saying to Mycroft that Watson created the Moriarty character expressly for propaganda and so named him. There's also reference to "artificium". Moriarty, however, is an Irish last name


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...in which souls are one and divided...

A river, however changeable so that you couldn’t step into the same one twice, could always run into the same sea as another.

  
And in the sea, Charles and Erik in the waves of the Channel, which the French called the sleeve, and which the Chinese might pun about a “cut sleeve”, mingled their souls as two rivers would mix their waters.

Charles lacked the convictions of his class. Erik possessed aspirations he could not fulfill.

After the most fortunate and important boating accident in the history of the world, Scotland Yard was waiting on the shores of Dover for the dripping figures to emerge. Erik went willingly with them this time. What were admonishments, remonstrations, punishments and slander when

Charles Xavier was telling terrible jokes _in his head_.

Before the week was out, a Queen’s Counsel came down from London in the company of Charles Xavier, “the gentleman who caught you” said the guard before bringing Erik into the long tabled room where all his effects were returned to him by the police inspector with profuse apologies.

“Mistaken identities,” Charles had said in his head, “happens all the time to my friend.”

It took a moment for Erik to realize had been the “friend”. He wandered as Frankenstein’s monster, thought himself as Melmoth in more grandiloquent moments. Friend was a word, like prophet or effulgent- known and never used.

But no one Erik had ever met invited him home to meet their sister.

“Silence suits us,” Charles said whenever they retire to the library. He never spoke above a whisper for as long as Erik had known him. Gentlemen did not work; they went into politics or scholarship. But there was no great parliamentarian without a great voice, no matter his views or his turns of phrase. And scholarship was quiet, but isolated.

In the quiet confessions that echoed in the air between them in the library, the raucous joy that tumbled in their heads on the streets of London or the galleries of the British Museum, Charles said he knew his differences must have had meaning as well as form and then Erik was there: Jew, mutant, Uranian- the other half of Charles’ soul.

Lying in the soft bed in the master’s bedroom of English country estate, Erik had traced the gold emboss of the leather book lying on his chest. He had learned Greek so he might challenge his betters. Charles had learnt because as a boy, he was enslaved to the expectations of his world.

Heraclitus’ river, referenced in Plato’s _Symposium_ , also gave Aristophane’s story of Zeus’ splitting of men. The consequence was clear: after two halves found each other and became whole again, men could scale Olympus and lay their hands on the gods.

The book fell and thumped quietly onto the Persian carpet. Together then, Erik turned his body in favor to trace the soft dark hair around Charles’ ears. One blue eye slit open even as the mouth curled gently.

“You’re insatiable, my friend,” said Charles’ silence, and his hand smoothed Erik’s front, rubbed gently at his stomach before reaching downward again and Erik moved himself closer, soul and body.

-=-=

“You’re thinking of me,” said Charles of the present. Eight o’clock. A man came and sat down in front of Erik at the secluded chess table at the Diogenes club. He put a pawn forward, engaged an English opening, and did not engage Erik’s eyes.

He had, however, Charles’ aspect. All the sharp grace of his face, all his delicate colorings. But he had not spoken.

“I think of you often,” Erik answered, relieved and angry all at once. “Did you not hear?”

“I was traveling,” said Charles.

Erik closed his eyes. He, too, had travelled. But never so long after he found Charles. Four years. Gods. Charles had left him alone for four bloody years.

“Time passes differently for telepaths.”

“Does it?”

He looked hard at the lowered head. Threads of silver showed here and there in the dark. At Charles’ temple, a few white lines showed.

“You have grown older.” It was easier than saying “you were hurt.”

The smile was slow, as if the muscles had forgotten the expression. “So you may finally be convinced Oscar Wilde did not write my biography.”

Close enough, even if Charles kept no portrait in his attic.

“So why have you came back at the most dangerous time, to the most dangerous place? And asked me to come to you?”

“I had to be sure.” The steel in Charles was a curious thing, more mercury than any forged compound. Erik loved and hated for how it could seemed so familiar and so strange at once.

“Sure of what?” My loyalty? My love for you?”

Charles finally looked up. The eyes have changed, too. There was the same shape, the same blue, and perhaps the same shadows, but the meaning were obscured. “Myself.”

Erik had not been a patient man before Charles. He had waited at trains and other transports at foreign ports and stations, giving up opportunities because he and Charles had appointments they kept. Then he had waited incognito in France doing little in the face of prejudice only because he was still, he supposed, waiting.

Half a man could not challenge the gods alone.

And yet the fear seized him. Had he imagined Charles’ affection for him?

“Why were you uncertain?”

“That one day you would be gone and I wouldn’t care because there’s a part of me that can so easily be another. I feared that what we do will fail because I am not always myself.”

Surrounded by books, dead elegant things, and a sister who could be anyone. Charles Xavier had built himself a prison where all was known.

“Did Sherlock Holmes tell you that? Is his manic contemplation of his own immortality and other’s mortality infectious? You are not immortal, Charles. We have limited time on this earth and we could die by accident or design. Yet you left me alone for four years. Four years where you made me suffer for your absence, until you come back and choose for us to meet under Mycroft Holmes’ nose!”

“Lord Salisbury wants my support.”

“What?”

“Labour will lose the election. Perhaps it’s time for-“

“A change,” Erik finished for him, then continued, bitter, “So you were right to be concerned. You will turn Conservative, uphold all the traditions of your race and their kind. Canvassing, elections, a safe-seat in the House. Rights to all who already held the power. Perpetuate the destinies of English gentlemen for an English Empire. Dismiss all your youthful follies while I regret mine.” He envisioned himself dying in some foreign place, when all the lands of the earth were foreign him and his race; nevertheless, he would bleed for a cause that few people saw the need and fewer would miss.

All men must have rights before mutants could be admitted to their rank. A natural sense of injustice and an unnatural affection had led Erik in a full circle, as helpless and wanting as he had ever been.

"Erik-“ Charles thoughts stopped suddenly. Silence rang loud in Erik’s mind. He toppled over a knight. The ivory struck the board like a bell. Charles’ hand reached out to muffle the sound. His fingertip glanced over Erik’s hand. The touch burned against skin. “Will you come up with me?"

"Where? Bradford?" Erik withdrew. It was too late for a train. That had been the excuse, once. A convenient fiction if anyone should ask. Two old friends lingered over dinner, over wine, over conversation. One must extend the hospitality to the other. What could be more natural? Before.

"Upstairs. It's too late for cabs, or the train."

"Are you so eager to be rid of me when I've not seen you or heard your voice for the last four years. I am dizzy looking at you,” Erik confessed. “I no longer wished to look at you if you’re not mine.”

“Come and touch me then,” Charles said. “Mycroft Holmes sees nothing he does not wish to see.”

Erik got up, like a man drugged or possessed, perhaps both, for habit led Erik’s steps even as reason urged him to go and leave the man who had abandoned him without a word and betrayed the work they had undertook. They went up to the discreet door up to the suites of rooms where Charles had kept his room. Was keeping.

Charles had the key. Erik opened the door with a touch.

When the lock clicked again, Erik fell upon Charles and tried to devour him with his lips, his tongue, his teeth, because the Charles he loved, no matter how multitudinous his telepathy rendered him four years later, was still contained in the same limbs that had hauled him out of the water, out of prison, out of a life that seemed to remain bleak and discontented forever.

No sound would penetrate the walls of the Diogenes Club, built to be stolid and stalwart in all things, to preserve and even to embalm secrets that could loosen the floodgates.

"Against the wall, really, Erik?" Charles huffed laughter against his ear as Erik’s hand stripped him of his jacket and almost tore the braces off his shoulders.

"Charles-" Erik kissed a bared throat and said, “Don’t speak. I can do this, if I can pretend.” I want to. Because four years was a long time to be without a warm touch, a desire fulfilled but absent of loss.

Charles said nothing. He pushed Erik toward the bed. Erik kicked off his shoes and watched Charles unfasten his trousers.

"I wore silk, for you," Charles said, looking up from his eyelashes then gasped as Erik’s mouth closed over the distended fabric. He breathed deep Charles’ musk, while his mouth sucked at the wet fabric, tasting silk and the first drops of Charles pleasure. Charles hands were on his shoulders and he was moaning as if he was in pain, belied by the sting of ecstasy piercing through Erik’s own. The tension in his groin became unbearable. He reached down a hand to touch himself and shuddered. He shoved his hips forward; his mouth fell open further and Charles was so deep in his throat, the wet silk clung to his nose, he couldn’t breathe and almost choked.

Reluctant, Erik pulled away, out of sync with himself. He looked up. Charles was flushed in front of him, almost entirely nude, his underwear transparent and obscene with Erik’s saliva. Erik licked his lips, watched Charles do the same and groaned aloud.

“Strip,” Charles said, falling forward, his fingers making quick work of Erik’s clothes until he slipped between Erik’s legs, his silk rubbing deliciously and frustratingly against the length of Erik’s cock. Erik parted his legs, tried to shove forward, but the necessary layer of fabric frustrated his efforts.

Charles moved up further and sat kneeling astride his chest. Erik rubbed at the naked arch of hipbones with his thumbs. "Mycroft spoke to me."

"The man has a voice?" Charles asked, sounding strangled as Erik conjured a knife from his cufflinks to slit his underwear into pieces and Erik admired the flushed head of Charles’ cock- hard and wanting, still just for Erik. Not a folly. No; not when Erik’s mouth and Erik’s knives could unman him while Charles’ thoughts twined through Erik’s own sensations.

To apologise for the thought, Erik kissed the long scar inside Charles thigh. A childhood accident from a fallen horse. Erik’s tongue knew its ridges, its taste in various stages of pleasure, its distance from all the private places of Charles’ body that only Erik knew.

"He told me they found your body. Does he think you are you brother?" He whispered against skin.

“Don’t talk about my brother while I’m-“ Charles spoke aloud, then seemed to swoon. He swayed on his knees, into Erik’s mouth. One of Charles’ hands reached back. The motion arched his chest, brought out how his nipples pebbled pink. Erik pinched one, felt the reaction in the taste in his mouth, then groaned himself. He had Charles. Charles had him in his hand, the thumb slipping over the wet crown, slickly slipping downwards in a tight grip.

Erik couldn’t arch well into the hand with Charles atop of him. Erik flattened his tongue, sucked harder, pinched harder while his hand steadied and craved the smooth skin and the curve of strong muscles at Charles’ waist. Tension wound tighter at the base of his spine and he could feel Charles’ own arousal rising with every moment. He didn’t dare take his eyes away from the sight of Charles above him. It may be the last.

Bent on the frisson of impending crisis, he grunted out his surprise when Charles flooded his mouth. He swallowed most, some trickled down the side of his face, down his neck. Charles bent forward and kissed him while his other hand worked between them until their skins could slide together in a mixture of sweat and cum.

The covers were ruined, the brocade would never be the same, but Charles didn’t leave. He turned back the covers and slipped himself under as they had done before. Never resist a temptation. Erik followed.

"My brother, Capt. Charles Xavier is stationed in the America," Charles said, turning to face him. "Wesley's his fourth or is it his fifth name. I think the Americans were not fond of the length of his entirety. He told me he gave the excess away to another fellow, whose parents could only furnish one with him. The fellow dined and died by the name after crossing the Atlantic. Mycroft, as Sherlock assured me, has the fault of inactivity."

Erik considered this for a moment, said, "If you’re playing your brother, I’ll still call you Charles.”

"We are what we’ve always been. Call me whatever you like, darling, wonder, joy." And yet, the familiar words seemed strangely cold. Erik didn't recognize the gleam in Charles' eyes; the familiar sincerity grated. "Do you not realize how I missed you? That if one politics fail, we must pursue another. It’s merely form, not the substance. Labour or Conservative, what does it matter as long as we may be men and not devils or devilry.”

“I never though you’d take part in realpolitik. I’m not fond of Bismark," Erik said."Mycroft regretted your death, called you ‘inflexible’, so much for the famed Holmesian insight.”

“Because he never thought to challenge his Empire. Bridget Cleary’s murder would go to trial. Irishmen will be condemned as savages and there would not be a word about the possibility that she is ‘a changeling’ . The Home Rule Bill will be brought about again debating whether Irishmen may have more governance over themselves. It is mere politics to him.”

“We were agreed that democracy is for the people and despotism and dictatorship condemned,” Erik reminded Charles. “People deserve their revolutions, a chance at change. You agreed with me.”

Charles frowned. “But is it better or worse that Mrs. Cleary may be one of us and her neighbors correct, should men who recognize difference but feared it be allowed to rule according to their fears against us. We are so very few.”

“So you would have us wait.” Erik turned away from Charles and watched the ceiling. He thought of Greymalkin, Charles’ estate, the bedrooms with its antique wood and gilt. How many had dreamed or achieved glories under its roof? How many maids or footmen had lived and died "in service", some never venturing from downstairs or the servants corridors?

“We would have us work. You, me, Raven, Irene, and others we have found. Mycroft guards his Empire, we will guard ourselves. Our safety. That’s all I care about, I realized. I cannot dictate other people’s reactions-”

“Except you can.”

“As you can wage war against an army. But what then? We will not live forever. Shall there always be a telepath, a metallokinetic that control the world’s government and armies? And that they should be of one soul and one mind? You waited.”

Erik could not answer immediately. After a moment, he drew a deep breath and said to the ceiling, “I was waiting for you to come back.”

-=-=

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Empty House, according to Watson, took place in Apri 3, 1894. Chronologically, it's the last case involving Moriarty or Moran. Watson further wrote that certain stories he wrote about Moriarty later on in time is due to letters from a "Col. James Moriarty" who protests his same-named brother's innocence. Holmes also mentioned a "Station Master James Moriarty". 
> 
> In July/Aug 1895: the General Election where the Independent Labour Party (from which will later emerge the Labour Party, among others) had an absymal result. Irish Home Rule was a key issue, and one of the reasons why the Bridget Clearly case, where immolation of a woman is considered a valid way of getting rid of a “changeling”, got so much press about the ability of the Irish for government.


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